Flashback Friday #39

Fire in (or firing in) the outhouse isn't a good idea

Hello, and welcome to another stroll with me down memory lane. Today we stroll to the back of our property to the old outhouse. Ever since we got indoor plumbing, the outhouse had only been used in cases of dire emergency. Since it wasn't used for it's primary function, we decided to make a clubhouse out of it.

All of the groups of kids that you saw on TV, or read about in books, had a club house. The Mickey Mouse club, The Mad Scientist club, The He-Man Women Haters club all had club houses. We were only kids, but we figured that we could do the remodeling needed to make the old outhouse our "home away from home".

The first thing we did was to lay planks across the three holes that served as the "depository". We didn't nail these down, just in case we needed to use said depository. We then hauled in some cement blocks and created a fireplace ( in case we wanted to cook out or we got cold). We then set up a "booby trap" to keep intruders out. We set up a trip line at the door that led to the handle of an old cast iron skillet that we had placed in the rafters. We didn't realize at the time that the skillet could have killed someone who tripped the wire. It never happened like that on TV.

One day during our "meeting" it was a bit nippy, so we decided to light a fire in our fireplace to warm things up. A few scraps of lumber and some small sticks got to burning pretty good. One problem that we hadn't thought of was that there was no chimney. Smoke began to fill the clubhouse. We were exiting as Dad entered. "What is going on!" he demanded. I told him that we were trying out the fireplace that we built. He went in and put out the fire. Another thing that we hadn't thought of was that it's not a good idea to start a fire on a wood floor. We were lucky that we didn't burn the outhouse down with us in it. We were told point blank NO MORE FIRES!!! The fireplace became a table with the addition of a few more cement blocks and some planks.

One of the things that we liked to do around the outhouse/clubhouse was to shoot flies. Doug had a BB gun. I wasn't allowed to have one because my older brother, Sir Gattabout, shot the neighbors window with his, therefore negating my chances of ever owning one. We would stand outside the clubhouse and wait for flies to light on the wall. We would then slowly inch the barrel close to them, and then blast them into oblivion. Usually the BB would embed itself into the siding with legs & wings sticking out. For a young boy, this was a great pastime.

One day we were relaxing inside with kool-ade & cookies when a large bumble bee crashed our party. He buzzed and swooped and made himself a general nuisance. Finally he landed on the wall opposite of where we were sitting. I had Doug hand me his BB gun and I took aim, and squeezed off my shot. To this day I don't know if I hit that bumble bee. Instead of burying itself in the siding like outside, the BB ricochet around the inside. We huddled up and covered our heads. Ping, ping, ping ping, back wall side wall, front wall, side wall that BB screamed around while we sat frozen in fear of getting hit. Finally it hit the edge of an empty chamber pot that we had sitting on the "table" I think this was going to be our stew pot (ew). The BB zipped around inside that pot about 20 times before coming to rest at the bottom. From that day on, no more discharging weapons inside the clubhouse was allowed.

Did you have a clubhouse?